Keri-anne Payne admitted the calm conditions put paid to her podium aspirations as she finished seventh in the 10km marathon at Fort Copacabana.
The 28-year old from Stockport came home in 1:57:23.9 as the Netherlands’ Sharon Van Rouwendaal streaked away to win gold in 1:56:32.1.
Payne is a two-time World Championship gold medallist in the 10km, and also won silver in the first Olympic staging of the event in Beijing eight years ago.
While she won the test event over the same course 12 months ago, it had been in rough waves and a cool water temperature of 18 degrees.
And Payne insisted the warmer temperature, which reached 21 degrees on the day, and calm water had played into the hands of the swimmers such as Van Rouwendaal, who won 400m freestyle silver in the pool at last year’s World Championships.
“I was hoping for a bit of rain,” said Payne. I was hoping it would be cold. We planned for the worst. We did some cold water swimming because last year the venue was cold.
“If the conditions were different, this would have been absolutely perfect for me. The fact that it was really flat and really calm totally played into the pool swimmers’ arms and that’s exactly what we had.
“I was racing the world silver medallist in 400m freestyle today and that fact that it was really flat and really calm totally leant its way towards those girls.
“I missed the jump which was round the end of the third lap and that’s a lot earlier than the jump has ever gone before.
“Going round the buoys was absolutely carnage – it only takes a split second for someone to go and that’s exactly what happened.
“But these are the best girls in the world so to be seventh in the world at 28 years old and at my third Olympics has been an absolute dream. This last year has been incredible.”